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Dark Days

BELGIAN designer Veronique Branquinho has been forced to close her eponymous label due to the pressures of the recession, it was revealed today. Branquinho's business, like Christian Lacroix which entered bankruptcy proceedings this week, relied heavily on wholesalers - who have seen their buying power greatly cut this year.

Branquinho's company, James NV, of which she owns the majority, has begun a court-appointed liquidation period for the next three months - and will continue to trade from the label's only standalone store, on Nationalestraat in Antwerp, to clear residual stock.

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It is understood that the designer, who was one of a new wave of Belgian talent in the late Nineties which included Raf Simons, Olivier Theyskens and A.F. Vandevorst, will now focus on her role as the new artistic director of Belgian leather goods brand Delvaux and will continue as a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.